THIS IS THE ARSONIST!
If you don’t know Gao the Arsonist: THIS IS YOUR WAKE UP CALL! THIS IS THE ALARM THAT GOES OFF TO WAKE YOU UP IN THE MORNING!
Over the past year, the UK artist Gao the Arsonist has developed a truly cult-like fanbase. You may recall a couple months ago when we covered his song BOONDOCK (with NotNevi). Since that time, Gao has continued to show that he not only puts out amazing music but he excels at promoting and getting people truly EXCITED for his new music. The past few months Gao has consistently released provocative and enticing snippets for his new song BEAUTIFUL in collaboration with Overpade- a collaboration that underground rap fans and “RapTok” fans especially have been asking for a while. Despite Overpade feature being teased throughout promotion, the most impressive thing to me was that Gao was able to generate mass interest and appeal all while HIDING the Overpade verse.
The beat starts off insane, even “ungodly,” as Gao described it in his initial TikTok teasing the track and I think that would be doing it justice.
Gao does his normal thing where he spits insane melodies filled with lyrics that go way over your head if you are not paying close attention, but one bit of this track that brings a new level of entertainment are the odd and demonic vocal samples that are used in the song.
At the 20 second mark, the songs title is said in an adlibbed sample. At 45 seconds there is a censor bleep during the line “They replacing nicotine with *BEEEEP* in the cigarettes” (Remember that wake up call I talked about at the start of this article? Yeah, full circle baby). At 49 seconds he debuts a new tag in a man screaming in panic “This is the arsonist!” (a tag that I would guess listeners will hear more in the future, as Gao produces his music as well). At 58 seconds it sounds like a small girl crying out “DIE!”. I could go on and on if I wanted to talk about Gao’s vocal adlibs as well, but these samples really brought a new element to the song.
So the question that most people had coming into this track is “how will Overpade get on a beat like this?” Well, that’s the beauty of Gao’s music rollouts, which is entirely independent I might add. And in typical Gao fashion, there is a somber, piano filled beat-switch towards the end of the song as the beat transitions into a much different energy.
I’m not quite sure how to explain what the beat sounds like at the end of this song, especially with Overpade cooing (yes, cooing) over the beat in a soft yet confident tone. The harmonies and soundscape are beautiful and if you listen to Gao you know that he loves to create intense and elaborate beat switches like this.
The song is a MUST listen, and both Gao the Arsonist and Overpade should be on your radar if they weren’t already. This article doesnt do the track justice by any means. Follow Gao on TikTok and Instagram to stay up to date with his new content. BEEP! BEEP! That’s the alarm going off again. Pretty soon it’s going to be impossible to ignore. Gao the Arsonist is on his way to something special. Listen to the track below.